05

Queens Of The Stone Age
Lullabies To Paralyze

Strangely, considering this has made the top 5, I still see this album as something of a disappointment. Their previous album Songs For The Deaf topped this list in 2002, and it is still one of my favourite albums. Therefore, I was not happy when this came out (it was one of the albums I was most excited about this year). In fact, at first, I hated it. But steadily it found its place with me. I guess it took me a while to realise that this is not the same as Songs For The Deaf, nor is it trying to be. Whether I like it or not, Josh Homme has moved on (upsettingly without bassist Nick Oliveri), and it was only when I started to follow him that I got something great from this. Lullabies To Paralyze has its heart and soul far more in the sleaze rock of the late 70s punk scene than it does in the Black Sabbath influenced desert sound of Kyuss or early Queens Of The Stone Age offerings. This has a new swagger, and a great sense of rock ‘n’ roll fun (although it can be a little chauvinistic for my taste, but then that’s always been something I’ve had to put up with from Queens Of The Stone Age to a certain extent). After a couple of misfires to start with, track three ‘Everybody Knows I’m Insane’ smashes out the agenda for the album, brutal and nasty pop perfection. Each track from then on keeps this standard, be it the stomp of ‘Tangled Up In Plaid’, the brilliant bass line of ‘Burn The Witch’, or the more complex progressions of ‘Someone’s In The Wolf’.

The best track though, by a mile, is ‘Broken Box’. In fact this is my favourite individual track of the year by any band, and I think is almost certainly my favourite ever Queens track. Utterly flawless dirt pop. Can’t be touched.

All of which means that Lullabies To Paralyze is a great album, that like all previous Queens Of The Stone Age releases, I have played to death. But, this isn’t as good as 2000’s Rated R and certainly isn’t close to their masterpiece Songs For The Death. And so it remains a disappointment. Albeit an exceptionally good one.